Students at Gordon Elementary in Kingston planted strawberries in a planter box at the school in 2009. (LARRY STEAGALL | KITSAP SUN file)

KINGSTON -

As the local food movement grows, schoolyard gardens are becoming nearly as ubiquitous in Washington public schools as, well, standardized tests. So it only makes sense that some of the homegrown grub makes it on to the lunch line.

This school year at Commodore Options School on Bainbridge, students partook of school-grown potatoes. Next school year, students at Wilkes Elementary on Bainbridge will eat produce they helped to grow at the Morales farm. And students at Gordon Elementary in Kingston have even bigger plans. If the summer goes well, in the fall students should be eating tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, spinach, broccoli and lettuce grown in beds at the school.

“That’s about as local as you can get,” said Mel Gallup, a teacher at Gordon who coordinated the massive gardening effort.

The plan to serve the produce in the lunch room was just approved by the North Kitsap School Board. All the projects were helped along by a 2008 state law that eased regulations to allow locally grown food in public schools, established the “Farm To School” program to connect schools with local farmers and provided funds to buy locally grown food for school children who come from low-income homes.

At Gordon, Gallup and his fourth and fifth grade students started the gardening project in 2009. Now the school is home to 17 raised beds filled with compost created with lunchroom waste. Each classroom cares for a bed. Gallup’s class has taken over an unused greenhouse at Kingston Middle School, too. The students have 4,000 to 5,000 plant starts in the greenhouse now.

Initially, produce from the Gordon gardens was served as classroom snacks. But Gallup and his class made a plan to expand to the lunch room. NKSD Food Services Director Dan Blazer checked with the Kitsap County Health Department regulations and got the OK from the NK School Board.

Once the produce is harvested, students will perform the first washing. Lunch room staff at Gordon will perform the second, all in accordance with Kitsap County Department of Health Regulations, Blazer said.

Gallup said it’s great to see students eating vegetables they might once have rejected. “It could be the novelty,” he said. “I don’t know the psychology behind it, but I know it happens.”

On Bainbridge, Commodore Principal Catherine Camp said students were also more apt to try new vegetables, such as Swiss chard and spinach. Gardening was also tied into the curriculum. Commodore has big plans for 2010-11 too, with a garden that has doubled in size.

Wilkes’ program is part of The EduCulture Project, which has been developing farm-to-school programs on Bainbridge for the past three years. Wilkes students have planted potatoes, corn, sunflowers and sugar pumpkins on publicly owned land at the Morales farm. Three local farmers will help oversee the effort, according to an e-mail from Jonathan Garfunkel, of The EduCulture Project.

Grade School Gardeners

Other school gardening projects:

Free summer meals offered at Martha & Mary Children Services will include produce from local farms and a hands-on approach for children who will help prepare their own meals. The programs began Friday and will continue through September at Poulsbo Elementary. Meal times are 8 to 9 a.m. for breakfast and 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. for snack.

In addition, children enrolled in Martha & Mary Kids program will visit either Butler Green Farms on Bainbridge or Abundantly Green Farm in Silverdale every Tuesday afternoon. Kids will be visiting animals at the farms while collecting the week’s offering of produce.

Breidablik Elementary recently dedicated a vegetable garden in honor of former North Kitsap School Board member Dan Delaney. The garden will incorporate climbing plants on an old metal playground structure. Breidablik is also home to a small orchard, a rain garden, a nature trail and a Zen garden.

Master gardeners from South Kitsap will visit East Port Orchard Elementary every Wednesday through the summer to teach kids more about growing vegetables. The gardeners will be on hand during the district’s summer lunch program at EPO. Other summer lunch sites are Sidney Glen Elementary and Orchard Heights Elementary. Summer lunch will be served beginning Wednesday through Aug. 20 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Any child age 18 or younger is eligible for the program.